Wade In The Wings

Only three shopping days 'til Christmas.

The Red Sox have offered a one year deal to starting pitcher Wade Miller who was a nontendered free agent and made available to the public Monday by the Houston Astros. The deal is a bargain at $1.5 Million with additional bonuses available.

It turns out the Dodgers were dicking around on Johnson the entire time... which isn't even the sweetest part, the fact is the Yankees are still missing a solid #2 pitcher and until the three-team trade news began to emerge the Yankees had seemed to be the front runner for left hander Eric Milton. Now that the deal has fallen apart, the Yankees have a lost a week's time and the Marlins are the front runners to sign Milton. In the past week's time they also missed out on the opportunity to resign Orlando Hernandez who decided to leave the Yankees for the White Sox earlier today. It would be a safe bet for the Yankees to acquire a quality 6th starter as you never know what you are going to get with Kevin Brown or Javier Vazquez. Others remaining on the market are Odalis Perez & Derek Lowe whom both have been looking at other options aside the Yankees already this offseason. Thusfar Milton is their best bet if the Johnson deal falls through but the deal would have to go through a whole lot sooner than later.

So just a point of attention here, I have seen a lot of comments from Yankees fans teasing Sox fans that David Wells with be opening day starters. Well here are just some points as of right now.

1) The Red Sox rotation is shaping up better than the Yankeees rotation.
Schilling will be well rested coming into a short season with an extra month off.
Let's review:
Schilling vs Mussina (season edge - push, post season edge - Schilling)
Clement vs Pavano (edge - push)
Wells vs Wright (edge - Wells, experience - Wright is a hardball one year wonder.
Miller vs Vazquez (edge - both coming off bad seasons but have great stuff whenever they find it). Arroyo vs Brown (edge - Arroyo, Brown has nothing left)
Sox - Halama, Kim, Wakefield.
Yankees - Halsey.

2) Here's a fact, the Red Sox lose on opening day every year. It's no big deal we're used to it. The team makes the playoffs, that's what it's all about -- championships aren't won in September. Frankly I don't mind if Wells starts opening day, but it's unlikely to toss a lefty out there anyhow.

3) The Red Sox don't open up against the Yankees, as a matter of fact, they play on an odd numbers day rest after their opening days so the rotations won't be set up to pitch evenly so the fact that Schilling is out will not matter.

4)Sox starting 5: less than $30 Million
Yankees starting 5: roughly $60 Million
But to a Yankees fan this means that the Yankees and the Red Sox are both offensively over paying compared to the poor teams in MLB, not realizing that the extra $30 Mil. would fund 2 Randy Johnsons for the Red Sox, try and imagine that one...




Paolo DeVito
Back In Beantown